To Scheme

The first of two books detailing the famous Pirate Ce’Tus’ final haul.

Content

The old Avotoc smiled. As much as a creature whose skull was, quite literally a skull with no opening jaw and instead three vertical slits where skin—as much as you could call their exterior skin—opened into the body. The tips of these openings, could, on all Avotoc curl to form a facsimile of a smile, frown, or other recognized facial expression. Then they had their own expressions. The old Avotoc knew he was nearing his own mortality. Not from any divine predilection or other source of magical insight. He figured that after this long, the likelihood of a fatal mistake was high. He had committed many crimes worth dying for in the eyes of many, including those who hated him. He knew what the laws were and understood he would die soon, but none of his previous feats were worthy of death, to him. So, he knew he would commit something soon enough that would either be worthy of death or result in it. So the old Avotoc smiled.
Word travelled to Koskno that a Poria researcher had begun unearthing what they believed to be Porrair’s Crown. Of course, this fabled artifact had to be confirmed by the Poria government, certified by the researcher that the government had confirmed all details correctly, authorized for transport, a real time consuming endeavor by all accounts. The pirates knew this process and how long it would take for this process to take place and knew their resulting timeframe. Two days at most to plan, once travel time was factored in, and planning could continue during the trip. At this point they had to assume that the artifact had indeed been confirmed—they figured if it wasn’t Porrair’s Crown, a find rumored to be that important would still be fairly valuable.
Off they went after a day of planning, with a slow route from Koskno and meandering down across the western section of Parallelium until they found the undeveloped planet-star where Poria believed they found the crown. From there they waited for several hours, jetting around the planet-star as they had no way of knowing where the ship would depart from, perhaps even spending this time doing reconnoissance on the area or the surface to find the ship or ships they were looking for. The primary obstacle to the plan would be the presence of security vessels. One or two—if small—could help alert them to the correct ship, in case the ship carrying the crown isn’t clear, but several ships or large ships in general would result in a messy ship fight that could see the target ship escaping. The plan was set.
Postscript- This story is continued in To Thieve, concluding the story of Ce’Tus, the great pirate. I garnered this information to compile into a story over years of eavesdropping in the pirate stronghold of Koskno. By the time this book is published, I have no doubt that the pirates will move to a new, more secluded stronghold.